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None of my vehicles are really interesting enough for their own thread, so I'm going for a tat blog style consolidated thread. The modern* - Citroen Berlingo 2.0 HDi The best and only photo I have of it. Generally reliable but showing it's 153k miles in various areas. It's good at hauling people and things around, that's about all I can say. Current status - off road for fixing of torrential oil leak and floppy gear change. The classic* - BMW 318iS Photo stolen from seller's ad. A recent £292 ebay purchase. I thought I would strip it out and do some track days but after driving it for a while I'm not sure now. 112k miles, some sort of service history, far from a creampuff but hasn't been messed about with like so many. Check out the orange indicators and standard 15 inch rims. SOAVE. Current status - daily use. Motorbike 1 - Honda VFR750 Has done me well as a 'first big bike' but it's replacement is already lined up. Current status - Awoken from winter slumber and with MOT station pending results tomorrow. Motorbike 2 - Honda Fireblade Bought cheap as needs gearbox looking at - jumps out of second (they all do that if they've been ragged sir.) Current status - gearbox repair is after Berlingo on to-do list, hoping for on the road by June. So there they are. Not very interesting but I will update the thread with my with my various spannerings/misadventures/getting bored and selling them all etc.

Well, here we go again. I bit the bullet and bought me this. It's still up at the lot right now, there will be a miniature Collection Thread embedded in this thread when I go fetch it. Hopefully if the weather's good, that'll be this weekend. So, what is it? As the title suggests, it's a 1951 Pontiac Chieftain. It's got a flat-head straight eight hiding in the engine bay, 4.4 litres of it. It's bolted to a 4-speed Hydra-Matic Drive gearbox. No torque converter on this one, just a fluid coupling. 116 horses at a screaming 3700 RPM, 240lb/ft at 2000. It idles at 375 RPM. Redline just shy of 4k. Did I mention it's quite big? Sixteen foot eight from end to end and it seats six people in comfort. Every door has a quarter-light, too. Comfort is provided by properly sized tyres and (quite surprisingly for the age of it) double independent wishbone front suspension. Steering is via worm/wheel steering box so is moderately direct and the brakes are hydraulic drums all round. Modern and scientific! It's an honest example; looks to have had a "restoration" about 15-20 years back and the rust is coming through the seams and filler. The bottoms of the door skins have gone, the bottom of the A-pillars have gone (the front doors, on a single hinge a piece still open and close with one finger!) And it's got a couple holes and blebs in all the places you would expect. Not much electrical works. It needs to be completely rewired because someone has "converted" it to 12V. Thankfully it was originally negative ground so that's a good start. Gauges and such can be driven from a 6V bucking converter. Engine has had some work done on it- starts and runs nicely with very little greb coming out of the exhaust. It's got a few gaskets that need replacing and the tappets need some major adjustment, the gearbox engages gears correctly, the steering is okay but has a lot of slack in the center and the brakes work well, dont sink or feel spongy but need adjustment. More to come. I'll post up more pictures when I get it home. --Phil

Fackin oops. My goal was not to buy any more cars but with the Lanchester out of action while we work through it and make it safe to use, and the Princess out of action and needing the engine to be removed (a job I am procrastinating about, and when I'm motivated am thwarted by schedule and weather conflicts) it was getting more obvious that I needed some personal transport. Something basic and reliable that I know my way around, that's going to be cheap to buy and run. This is an ideal candidate, on paper. Whether I really can just use it as An Car or will end up getting all finicky about making it nice remains to be seen. I just want some hasslefree pootling for a few months and normally Maestros are just that.

Well I've been meaning to sign up here in forever, but kept forgetting. Thanks to someone over on another forum I frequent poking me about it recently the subject was forced back into my very brief attention span for long enough to get me to act on the instruction. I figure that my little varied fleet might bring you lot some amusement... So...we've got: 1993 Lada Riva 1.5E Estate (now fuel injected, as I reckon the later cars should have been from the factory...). 1989 Saab 900i Automatic. 1987 Skoda 120LX 21st Anniversary Special Edition. 1985 Sinclair C5. 2009 Peugeot 107 Verve. Now getting the photos together has taken me far longer than I'd expected...so you're gonna get a couple of photos of each car for now, and I'll come back with some more information tomorrow when I've got a bit more time... Firstly...The Lada. Before anyone asks - in response to the single question I get asked about this car: No, it is not for sale. Took me 13 years and my father's inheritance to find the thing. Yes, it's got the usual rusty wings...Hoping that will be resolved in the next couple of months. Next, a proper old Saab. One of the very last 8 valve cars apparently, and all the better for it. I've driven two 16v autos and they were horrible - the auto box works sooooo much better with the torque curve of the 8 valve engine. Just wish it had an overdrive for motorway cruising... Next up a *real* Skoda...back when they put the engine where it belongs, right out the back. In the best possible colour of course...eye-searingly bright orange. Seat covers have been added since that photo was taken as it suffers from the usual rotting seat cloth problem that affects virtually all Estelles. Then we have possibly the world's scruffiest Sinclair C5... Realised when looking for this that I really need to get some more photos of the thing...I use it often enough after all! We have a dog who's half husky, so this is a really good way of getting him some exercise. Finally - again, I really need to take more photos of - we have the little Pug 107. Included for the sake of variety even if it's a bit mainstream! First (and probably to be the only) new car I've bought, and has been a cracking little motor and has asked for very little in return for putting up with nearly three years of Oxford-Milton Keynes commuter traffic, before finally escaping that fate when my housemate moved to a new job. Now it doesn't do many miles and is my default car for "when I've managed to break everything else." I'll fill in some more details tomorrow - I warn you though that I do tend to ramble...

First some background: I was brought up with no car interest, a car was transport and nothing more which resulted in a selection of poor cheap cars being the cars of my youth. Fast forward many years (just over 9 years ago) and I have a wonderful* Vauxhall Vectra estate to carry us about. Unfortunately it is crap and throws fault codes at us with nothing being there when it is checked (even at Vauxhall) As Mrs T is the main pilot of this chariot with the two little miss T's on board, it has to go. The hunt is on for the new steed to safely and comfortably carry the family around. I have a company car at the time so big journeys are not an issue. ebay is my weapon of choice to find the new family car. It has to be good value cheap for no other reason than I am tight. Weeks of research with lots of cars that are too expensive and too far away for easy collection end up in my watch list. Finally a possible is spotted in Fife. I go and have a look and find a poor looking but solid car. One previous owner and lots of history. The auction was to end on the Saturday at midday, we were going to be out! I decided on how much I was willing to gamble on it and on the Saturday morning I put in my max bid but straight away it went to my max bid, I was winning but it had three hours to go with no room for me to go up! We went out anyway. I spent the next three hours kicking myself for not bidding more while we were out as it was the first car I had seen that fitted my criteria. Fate was in charge. On returning home I go straight on ebay to find 'Congratulations.............' For the grand total of £500 I had just won this fine vehicle! It has 5 months MOT and after fitting seat belts in the rear for the girls car seats it is pushed into daily service. My gamble and subsequent use results in a perfectly reliable car that actually does what it is supposed to do. Even more importantly Mrs T loves it so a win all round. All my cars have names (most are earned over a bit of time) and this one is called 'Gwendolen' ( G reg car and from Wales originally. I hate the name but I am not going to argue) That sums up part one, more will be along later (probably much later)

Well... that escalated quickly. Thank you to Autoshite for once again being the enablers that you are. Now, which one of you horrible lot wants to buy my BX to make up for what you made me do?

Hello and welcome to my first proper thread here. Purchased in August 2019 my lovely Rover 3500. I'd gone to look at it and made the brilliant mistake of taking my 8 year old son with me and while I had my doubts when the (pre warmed!) V8 coughed into life and we trundled it round the industrial estate the seller was based on my son was smitten and let's be honest my arm didn't need that much twisting. (I ignored the well patina interior and musty small ) A bit of a poke and and inspection (possibly a little less through than it should have been - it did have an MOT after all) and it was ours and delivery arranged - out of laziness and the fact I did t wan tto do an 80 mile return trip in an unknownor arrange lifts and logistics. Anyway in all its glory, random tyres and mismatched mirrors. Fetching no? The following Sunday morning arrived and so did the Rover and without the pre warmed engine it was a bit more interesting to shuffle it off the train,er and mou t the dropped kerb into my cul desac TADTS. Tho with swearing and a fair amount of choke it was managed and with her V5 it was taxed and ready for a quick spin. When warmed up it would move reasonably well and bar some hansel and gretel style oil trail behind it and a crumbly water pump was pretty pleased. A list of things needed doing. A good service and oil change. New non leaking non grumbling water pump. Some new tyres and the 3 different brands across the 4 on the road were pretty past it. clean the interior and find some new doorcards as well they were a bit warped and past it. Just a bit. No problem. Oil change and service first.. well th oil was nasty, I ended up flushing it with cheap oil and a new filter twice as I couldn't find oil with ZDDP ina bricks and mortar shop. However in the end it was no longer coming out after 50 miles black and opaque. New door cards were ordered in non matching black but tbh I was just glad to loose the completely knackered sandalwood ones. My choice was made food when I managed to snag a set of black leather front and rear seats for 30 quid on gumtree 2 weeks later. Driving was still a bit of a mixed bag even after new tyres, oil, filters and new waterpump as it didn't want to change down the 3 speed box. Ah.. that will be the broken kickdown cable then. No problem what was a bit of a pisser was poking round and finding less than stellar repair in the passenger footwell My own fault for mot poking deeper when I checked it out, I knew it had been plated and repaired but as my son would be sitting there I felt it needed fixing. And tbh he loves it and weighed up selling it and getting another, fixing it myself (🤣😂) or getting it done professionally and went for the latter. I can weld but only just and this was a bigger job than I was comfortable with by some massive margin - that and I wanted to drive it not have it in bits in the garage for 9 months! So it went away for a few weeks, rot was cut out and One side at a time tidied And new metal put in A few rattle cans and structurally made sound again. Since then it has been 3 thousand miles of pretty hassle free motoring. I managed to buy a donor car and steal the rest of the black interior out of it and some sundym tinted glass too as well as a few other odd and sods - including g a working clock But it was all delayed due to the wonderful year that is 2020. The plans for the future as soon as I've sorted a house (and garage!) are to finish replacing the std door glass with sundym, fit a new steering wheel new to me anyway perspex P4 sun visors and get the speedo calibrated and enjoy it as is. There are a few rust bubbles and scabby patches in the paint which has a mass of microblisters in it too but I quite like the look and patina on it as is for now, it's a decent 10- 15 foot paint job. I know the structure is solid and safe and the oil leaks have been cured after a damn good servicing and cleaning out the rocker cover breather tubes and fire traps.

This evening I venture forth into hitherto unknown lands (Kirkintilloch) to collect my latest acquisition. Which, naturally, has issues. I have purchased my first line of defence. Which appears to have antigravity properties More will follow this evening...

That has gotta be the most unimaginative title in the known universe, but it's all i got! This thread is to document the adventures, and lets be honest misadventures of me and my vehicles, the main focus of this thread is to document my Range rover P38 i bought at the not so idiotic age of 17 from a chap in Worcestershire. Pics are few and far between. Originally I passed my test and my Dad wanted me to buy something small and economical, i left the house telling everyone I was going out to view a citroen Saxo VTS, And rocked up with this a few hours later! My Parent IE my Dad was speachless and the rest of 'em. Well either laughed with pity or walked away!! It went haywire when I told them it was a 4.6 Vogue with LPG ? Spec wise. Vogue specification Wood/leather steering wheel 16ish way seats with 2 person memory + heaters Harman Karden sound system Satnag 4spd Auto with sport mode "chortle" 18" Comet alloys Monte Carlo Blue Air suspension Climate pack - heaterd front and rear windows. And a few other odds and ends . The standard practice after buying such a car is to start driving it hard and long distance Daily.. Of course it got covered in shit from all the country lane jaunts, My Main love of cars comes from fixing them and cleanin' 'em myself, as such the old girl had to look her best, As odd and knobby as it sounds I do get rather nerdy when it comes to cleanin' Washmitts and speshul buckets anorl!! And thats it for an into! More later when i can find and correctly post regarding pics H

Been a serial lurker and occasional poster of nonsense, but have never quite got round to posting some pictures and the ongoing tribulations of being a serial VW licker. First a disclaimer - I like old VWs, partly as I grew up with them and partly because I understand how the work and I can fix* them. I do not like the 'scene' attached to them, it seems to attract too many of a certain type of person I am often allergic to - they bring me out in a shouty rage. First car was a'69 beetle in red, driven flat out everywhere until the rust took it. This was followed by a succession of Mk2 golf , vauxhall omega (vauxhall being close to VW in the sales ads) a free Mk3 golf which was dire and tried to kill me multiple times. I have no photos of any of these as they were pre-camera phone and mostly awful. Then came a T25 camper bought using generous donations from friends and family at our wedding . Bought, and a week later after hovering 15 years of dog hair out of it, we drove it all the way to northern Norway on honeymoon. Used it for a while. Bought a vauxhall astra estate (again, it was almost a VW in the sales section). It sucked. It did a year of commuting then it was scrapped. Was gifted a skoda fabia estate by my dad as a sensible run around. During this time my wife wanted a sensible runaround for her and the kids, so we bought a bright orange 1971 beetle (rusty of course) which was excellent fun. People were openly critical of apparent lack of regard for our offsprings safety. I pointed out it had seat belts. Due to rusting the T25 was sold as a project, the Skoda was sold for being too dull and a T2 purchased. Here is the peak of VW ownership, where the beetle, bay and T25 are all in one place just before sale: So now we had two aircooled vehicles, the newest of which was made in 1973. This lasted for exactly 9 months., during which I did lots of this: to be repeatedly rewarded with this: When the breakdown driver asks how the kids are getting on, you know you've seen him too much.... I also conducted some invisible repairs on the rusty bits of the beetle. I'll point them out if anyone can't see them: A promotion and car allowance then allowed me to purchase a C3 Picasso (best not ask, I hate it). Its purple. I feel like a dick when I drive it. Beetle then had to go due to third child and not enough seats, but it had the good engine, the van did not. A swap occurred. My neighbors love* me and find my antics endearing*. I clearly have no need for a drive or garage. After 1 too many FTPs, I was told van or family. I chose family and the van left. I then went a looked at another T25 minibus (three kids now) and was in much trouble for even considering another van. Two weeks later, after some small* arguments* we were in total agreement* and the van was purchased. Roughly 18 months ago - note lovely laqueer peel, mismatched rear wing and low level tide mark: After some light fiddling I have made a very basic day van affair, and we dragged it with camping gear and the three kids all the way up to the arctic circle in Finland last summer (wife has family in that part of the world). 6 days before departure I noticed the rear suspension had a bit of paint hanging off. I pulled and it showed this below: Trip to machine mart, a google of "mig wleding for numpties" and a youtube video later and I'd made this: and away we went. Here it is in a moody B&W photo in the land of the midnight sun, which really brings out the high quality paint. the rear suspension is still attached though, so winning. That's an epic catch up post really, but will use this space now to document the exciting* repairs and work done on it to keep everything attached .and working....

As many of you might have read on the grin thread and my thread about yank headlights on Volvo 740's, I should have acquired myself this one. I've just got a few pics of said Volvo pre rescue as it sits. For those who don't know, it's an 88 740 estate in 2.3 auto GLE spec (my favourite!) which was owned by my sisters boyfriends grandad. He passed away this year and the cars just been sat unused since mid 2015. The family are clearing the property and I was told the Volvo and others were going to most likely go for scrap. I said I'd take the Volvo and asked for a price only to be told I could have it! The Wolseley 1300 apparently is already spoken for so hopefully that will be saved or at least donate some parts. The Volvo should become mine at some point but the caravan and Omega will probably get weighed in. So here are the few pics I have to go on. IMG_0331 by Dan Clark, on Flickr IMG_0332 by Dan Clark, on Flickr IMG_0329 by Dan Clark, on Flickr IMG_0333 by Dan Clark, on Flickr The Volvo looks ok from the little I can see and having run an MOT history check it seems a good one. It's a low miler at 90k and seems to of only done a couple of thousand miles between tests. Most of the fails seem to be for stupid stuff. So the plan at the moment will be to try to get it running and moving then try to get it back home. At the moment it's a 100 miles or so away. To be continued...

Hi folks, As I threatened in my first post in the 'introduce yourself' thread, I will slowly be getting the fleet posted up on here for everyone to admire/ridicule. I will be the first to admit I have a hoarding problem, and at one point I had around 18 cars in addition to the stock that I was trading at the time... I eventually listened to those close to me who had been constantly nagging over the years, weaned myself back to one car for a year or so, realised that without projects to play with I was constantly bored and miserable and so decided that having one car was a crock of shit and I should buy more again. Always just one more, never more than that 😆 At the moment we have the following, some running and on the road, some not so much... Nothing irreparable though, and I will try my best to document the work I do as I pick away it on them all. So, on to the cars that we've got currently: 2007 mk3 Renault Clio 1.2 - mentioned for completeness, and because I put a new engine in it recently and effectively got the car for £150 I'm still feeling sort of smug. I got given it for free with a snapped cam belt after helping someone out, I bought the cheapest engine I could find, put a new cam belt on it and hoped for the best. It's now my partner's daily, and she's happy enough with it. I'm wary of it, as it contains computers, but whilst it runs it means I can delay welding my partner's Subaru! After driving it for a bit myself, I actually don't mind it and I've come to think it's an alright car for what it is despite being incredibly dull 😯 2000 Mk1 Honda Insight - I bought this around 2015/2016 when I was importing cars from Japan and put it in storage. It was tipped to go up in value... It didn't really. Before the world fell apart we used to drive on the continent a lot (my partner is Slovakian, we try to drive to see family rather than fly) so I recently took it out of storage and put it on the road in anticipation of getting some road trips in once the borders open. This is currently my daily driver. 2001 Mitsubishi Shogun Sport 3.0 V6 - This is our thunderbird, useful for rescuing the other cars when they shit themselves. So thirsty on fuel that you barely notice the change in economy when driving it unladen or with 1.5t dragged behind it 😆 Typical Japanese reliability, the engine and box are always well behaved but I'm forever welding bits into the holes in the body. I keep thinking of selling it, but it saved our arse when another car died just before a road trip to Zurich so I like to keep it around. It's quite good fun to take to pay and play days too, when I'm not busy throwing money at other stuff. 1994 Skoda Favorit Silverline Estate - I swapped another car I wanted to get out of for this one. The main attraction is that it horrifies my partner, as she had one as her first car and hated it. I've replaced quite a lot on this to get it running right, as it had some issues when I picked it up, I've also spent a good few days welding the underneath up. It still needs some bodywork and a tidy but it was a perfectly good daily up until the head gasket let go. It's still taxed and tested, the cylinder head is sat in the boot of the Mitsubishi ready to take for a skim, so hopefully I'll have her up and running again soon. I don't know why, but I've grown pretty fond of it over the time I've had it, despite the fact that it is fairly crap to drive by modern standards! 2001 Subaru Legacy Outback 3.0 H6 - Bought cheap with a short MOT, it was all going so well until I started picking at the inner arches. This was my partner's daily up until the MOT ran out, and ever since it's been on the 'I'll get round to it' list. Other than some crustiness, it's a pretty decent car. The flat 6 engine sounds beautiful through the stainless exhaust. It's rapid for a wagon, and has all the creature comforts you could want. It's fairly straightforward to work on. I think this is about our 6th or 7th Legacy, I keep getting rid of them and then regretting it. I'm told we are selling this one once I fix it... I may just buy my partner out of it, save us buying another one in a few months time 😆 2001 Mercedes E430 V8 Estate - £250 facebook marketplace special. Ran great for 6 months, providing loads of V8 fun. Bloody quick in a straight line, and huge inside. Easily one of my favourite shit heaps I've ever owned. Then the gearbox took a dump before we left for Zurich in 2019 (yes, I am stupid enough to plan a 3,000 mile foreign trip in a £250 German car...). I've since bought a replacement gearbox, which conveniently came attached to a 5.4l AMG lump from a CLK55 AMG that a mate was breaking, plus all the other bits I wanted to grab off of it. It's currently sat up at my parent's farm, firmly on the 'I'll get round to it' list. 2001 Mercedes SLK 320 - Bought off the mate who sold me the AMG lump, I got this as something to work on with my younger brother. It had a snapped control arm, and subsequently a knackered engine and gearbox. My mate chucked in a spare engine and gearbox, and we are most of the way through the repair work. The hardest part of this project has been both mine and my brother's working hours changing, making it hard to find the time to work together. 1992 Honda Prelude 2.2 Si VTEC - Another Japanese import, I bought it when I was 21, ran it for years and then took it off the road and left it up the farm until I was ready to do the restoration work it needed (I couldn't weld back then... Some people might say I still can't 😅 ) as the rear quarters and sills were going to crap. I started her up the other day and noticed she wasn't charging, so I'll probably strip the alternator and repair it over the next few days. As for the welding, you guessed it, I'll get round to it! 1992 Citroen BX Break 1.7 TZD - Well, it was free to a good home, and I had just dropped a car off and had an empty car transporter... What would anyone else do?! She's done nearly 300k miles, and has lots of holes for me to weld up. Otherwise runs fine, no trouble starting, suspension goes up and down as needed, doesn't spray green fluid all over the shop. I've had all the interior out and cleaned it thoroughly, removed most of the spiders, fitted the missing trim - basically done anything I can to avoid the harder jobs. It's due to become our holiday bus though, so I've scheduled some time over the next few months to get stuck in to the welding. This is probably one of the cars I'm most excited about running, as I reckon it will be a pretty decent estate to run around in. 1988 Zastava 311 - A bit of a random one, but I've always wanted a Zastava just for the obscurity. This one came up in January, and had been sat in barns since 1996 apparently. It didn't run when I got it, but I've slowly replaced pretty much everything in the engine bay, along with all the brake components and lines, and she runs now. Just the welding left to do, and she's ready for MOT. I have been fairly productive with this project, up until several cars within my family broke at the same time and I ended up working on those in my spare time instead of my toys. Only one family car left to fix and I'll be back on my projects again hopefully. I will try to put an individual post to follow for each car, as and when I can be bothered to do a write up of what I've done with each of them to bring them up to date, and then after that I'll try and get posts and pics up as I do jobs on them. I suspect the first thing to get up will be the Skoda, as that's what I'm actively working on currently. And seeing as you made it this far through my rambling, here's a picture of the Favorit:

As tradition dictates, an thread. It all kicked off here: http://autoshite.com/topic/34152-citroen-bx-17rd-for-sale-sale-on-hold-as-its-done-a-citroen-the-little-bastard/ Lorry is booked for collection tomorrow and a 340ish mile round trip awaits. It will be a long, but rewarding, day. No live collection updates because I live in the olden times and even if I didn't, I'm not sure I could be entirely arsed. I am looking forward to meeting Dean-numbers, his collection of wobbly French cars and, of course, Bleriot the BX. It will probably be too dark to do anything when we get back on Friday so I suspect Saturday I'll be up bright and early to get stuck in and see just what I've let myself in for.

This. By popular* demand* here is a thread about the least popular VW van around. The photo is as bought, back in 2006. Purchased with a year's MOT, 6 months tax, and a caravan all for £600. To his credit, the seller had received many enquiries from people wanting to buy either the caravan or van, but not both although refused to end the auction early when there were bids already on it. So it failed to go anywhere near what I thought it would sell for. The combination suited us well, as we could live in the caravan wile we carried out major house work, and use the van for carrying building materials. This we did, enduring a sometimes cosy but often cold winter in the caravan while I used the LT as my only road legal vehicle. It was already carpeted inside, with a simple electrical system as it had been previously used as a motorbike race van. It saw a little bit of use as a 'tent on wheels', seen here in Scotland in 2007: I'd always wanted to build a campervan, although I kept this quiet when seeking domestic funding for buying it in the first place! So when the bulk of the work was done, I suggested using some fittings from the caravan to convert it. This was met with approval (to my surprise), and we planned to take it to a festival one August. I waited for a forecast of dry weather, but none came and I was running out of time so ended up booking time off work a week before the festival. The reason for dry weather is that I wanted to tackle some welding... As it turned out, I had one dry day to work on it! After much searching I'd bought some genuine VW panels (despite forum experts saying there were none remaining), which fitted very nicely Managed to get that far on Monday, then it was time to tackle the floorpan but I'll leave that tale for another day...

First things first, I cannot collect this car until December. The Cactus goes back 19th of December and the Alessisisisis insurance runs out on the 1st of December. Its easier and cheaper to sort this out then. So he will remain hidden until then. ForFiatsSake bought it a few weeks back and he got it at a ridiculous price, he suspected that the prop has gone, but it's unconfirmed. If it has then it's £300 or so, which isn't too bad. The downpipe has gone and is being replaced this week. I need a daily driver when the Cactus goes back, I parked the Alessi at work for 3 days last week and I hated it. The fact it gets covered in shit and the fact some wank could wallop it, because we tend to block cars in for fun tbh. Which is where the 4x4 comes in, it's already battered and I don't care if it gets walloped further. For those that don't know, these are not like a Polo Dune or a Fabia Scout. This has permanent four wheel drive and is fairly good off road. There's an electronic rear diff on later ones, but this doesn't have it. I don't like that it's silver, as I need my cars to be luminous pink or green with purple viper stripes. I'm not a fan of the red interior, however last night I was looking at red leather Abarth seats from a 500, which bolt-in. I keep forgetting it's my work banger and mustn't have fancy seats....... It has proper air con and not the chocolate climate control, the rear axle isn't made of cardboard as it's obviously a different design. It has some fairly ridiculous winter tyres on it and again, this thread will be buried until later in the year.

Introduction: I am an idiot. I buy lots of crap. Keep it for about 6 months and then sell it for another project that most people would consider scrap. Join me on my ramblings as I keep old cars going that most people would sooner turn into washing machines or bean tins. Index: Page 1 - Austin Montego Estate 1.3L Base Initial Assessment. Many years of slumber and many rusts Page 12 - Lands End to John O Groats in a Montego. What could possibly go wrong...? Spoiler alert: It went wrong Page 17-18 - Bonus Mini content x2 Page 19 - LEJOG part Deux. The return of the Montenogo Page 24 - Goodbye to the Montego/Mini engine build/Arrival of an Impreza/Departure of my daily/Collection caper of a Volvo 240 - Busy page that one! Page 26 - Scooby departure & Arrival of a new modern-ish daily/track car Page 27 - NC500 2022/Headgasket on the roadside Page 28-30 - A wild Cavalier mk1 appears! A wild MGF appears! Plus bonus Montego content! Departure of the Cavalier. Acquisition of a Rover 414 and a 1979 Mini. I need to stop buying cars... Thread: What do you get after 16 hours and 800 miles of driving on a Sunday to collect two cars? Well @sharley17194 picks up a 1997 Citreon AX from the depths of the Lakes on the North West coast past Keswick. However, we actually started the day by driving to just near Cromer on the East coast to pick up this! An Austin Montego poverty spec estate with a 1.3L A-series engine! Yes you did read that bit right! Yes I know the DVLA lists the model as 1.6... Yes its correctly registered as 1.3L. No I dont know if its a factory 1.3L! 😂 My favourite part of all this??? (Apart from the doom blue colour and the absolutely terrible interior!) 281,000 miles on the clock! Collection went really well and the below posts follows my initial assessment of what is quite frankly the best car I have ever purchased.

So many broken picture links! I'll fix it one day. I feel I can finally unlurk properly now that I have something worthy of Autoshite to post about. Day One In the cold light of Day Two Came with some great features. The best thing about vinyl is that you *can* scrub it clean and with this old boat that was needed; everything was sticky and left a black residue on the hands. I've only been able to bring myself to spend an hour on the driver's door, the rest will have to wait for now. Doesn't look as big as it feels, weirdly. This is going to be my new daily in a few months, just got to get through a lot of cleaning and a bit of fettling. She's actually not that bad overall and only cost me £450 (plus £25 day insurance to collect her). The problems? >Quite a few rust blebs, but nothing serious or structural >Handbrake needs adjusting, I have to chock the wheels when parked on the drive >Driver's door window doesn't work >Probably decades of hand grease and silicone spray, built up in alternating layers. The engine bay is cleaner than the cabin. >Bonnet rams don't hold up the bonnet. >Neither do the boot rams. >Garage fitted electric fuel pump has no supressor, interferes with the LW/MW radio >PYE tape deck needs new belts, music played on it sounds like it's underwater >Bad previous respray with water contamination. But you know what, none of that matters. She's supremely comfortable and with some TLC over the summer should be in fine fettle. I'm not sure whether or not the people that look with face agog and jaw slack as I drive past are impressed, worried or amazed that a beige Princess with a brown roof still exists and is out on the road with someone a long way from pensionable age driving it.

Hullo, I'm a masochist from Leeds who is running two rusty, worn out Triumph Dolomites as my only transport in rural Aberdeenshire. You might recognise me from various other forums and Facebook groups. Realistically I need to buy a modern car of some sort, but instead I find myself looking at £300 Citroen BXs and Triumph Acclaims on Gumtree and thinking "yeah, that'd fit right in with the rest of the broken cars I can't afford". On to the cars, the main attraction being my 1976 1850HL "50 Shades of Yellow" that I bought for £850 and is currently my daily driver, here is a picture of it before I sanded off some surface rust and sprayed it badly in the wrong shade of yellow with rattle cans: Within a month of purchase I managed to plant it in to a steel fence backwards after a botched gear change on a wet roundabout and ruined the N/S rear wing, although judging by the other dent that's packed with filler it looks like somebody had already done the same. I also managed to destroy a halfshaft and one of my Sprint alloys (good for an extra 15hp) in the incident, so now it's sitting on it's original steelies but painted black (good for an extra 5hp). It's only broken down on me twice. once with some sort of fuel delivery related problem which may or may not have been an empty fuel tank and once when the thermostat jammed shut and it overheated and blew out some O-rings for the cooling system. It has recently developed a taste for coolant and oil which is rather annoying, although it's done 89,300 miles which is about 80,000 more miles than BL engineering is designed to last, I'm keeping my eye on eBay for replacement engines... I tried to keep ahead of the rust a bit by rubbing down the arches and re-painting them, but apparently rattle can paint isn't great when you are spraying it at -5C, it also highlighted how although my car might have been Inca Yellow in 1976 it's now more of a "cat piss" sort of shade. So I ended up with the wrong shade of yellow which has rust coming back through after 5 weeks. Did I mention I'm incompetent? The other car is the first "classic" car I bought, so I can't bear to sell it. It's a '77 Dolomite 1300 and it cost £1400 (about £400 too much) and has been nothing but a pain in the arse: It looks much prettier (from 100 yards) but that's most due to the darker paintwork hiding the rust. It lives a mollycoddled life in my garage, where it somehow still manages to rust, and is utterly rubbish. 0-60 is measured on a calendar, top speed is 80ish but at that point it uses more oil than petrol, it rarely ventures over 50mph and if you encounter an incline of any sort you can kiss that sort of speed goodbye, along with about £20 of 20W50 as it vanishes out of the exhaust in the form of blue smoke. One of the PO's had clearly never heard of the term "oil change" so it developed into brown sludge that coated everything internally with the next owner(s) blissfully pouring fresh oil on top of it. This lasted until about 600 miles into my ownership when there was muffled "pop" from the engine bay and the car became a 3-cylinder. The cause was catastrophic wear to the top end causing a rocker arm to snap: As this was my first classic car I'd assumed it was supposed to sound like the engine was full of marbles, it wasn't. I put the engine back together with second hand bits declared it utterly fucked and promptly did another 5000 miles with it. After about 3500 of those miles the oil burning started, valve seals have gone so it's been relegated to my parent's garage as a backup car and something to take to local car shows as the 1850 is now embarrassingly ugly. I'm keeping my eye on eBay for replacement engines (deja vu, anybody?) Oh, I also recently reversed it into a parked Ford Fiesta and royally fucked up the rear bumper, rear panel and bootlid. Did I mention I'm incompetent? There have been two other cars in my life. My first car, a 2008 Toyota Yaris 1.0 an it's replacement a 2012 Corsa 1.4T. I didn't really want either of them, but it's a long story involving my parents and poor life choices. Ask if you want to hear it! So that's a brief summary of my current shite. If you want more pictures or details of anything do say as I've got photos of almost everything I'd done with the cars.

What have I found? Busy day at the SiC household. With the Rover gone, it was time to pick up it's replacement. Due to an insurance timing fuck up on my part, @N Dentressangle kindly delivered this for me. Just done four hours of driving going back and forth so I'm now a bit knackered. I'd usually sit in it and have a fiddle but I might end up falling asleep in there.

I've been on my eye out for one of these for a while. Not in a rush, just waiting for the right one at the right price. I was close to buying @Minimad5/ @Inspector Morose Rover 60. While it was a readily do-able project, I simply couldn't have a third big bodywork project in addition to the two I have already. Would have loved to save it but I'd just snow myself under even more. This came up on the P4 Drivers Guild Facebook page at a good price and looked in good (patina) condition. So despite saying I'd never buy a car sight unseen after the midget debacle, I did just that! As a turn of fate, it was Inspector Morose who delivered it just recently today. The previous owner lives in the Windsor area and drove it on the M4 through Central London. Always a good sign a car is a good runner if it can do that. First impressions of it are very good! No visible filler nor metal patch work.Yes there is patina (rust) but it's a very honest car from what I can tell. There are a few bits and pieces to do however I intend to keep bodywork jobs to an absolute minimum. Maybe patch that hole by the filler cap. The front wing is not attached along the door length and stops the door opening properly. That I think is fixable with a couple of tack welds to hold it back in place. If I go poking I will find stuff, so that will be kept to an absolute minimum... Interior leather seems to be in very good condition. Patch missing on the rear that I'm hoping I can get a patch repair sown in. At least to prevent further damage. The leather needs a good clean and feed. Carpets are wafer thin and grubby. Not sure they'll last any form of cleaning. Tyres are ancient and on the high priority list of things to be sorted. Avon safety speed tyres that are cracked and rock solid. Other bits and pieces are old car stuff. Headlights seem to be MIA after the journey over here. Coolant hoses are heavily cracked (but holding). Starter seems to stick occasionally - I don't know where the crank handle is. Clutch feels high but I'll leave that till it's a problem. Brakes are soft but it's a servo car, so maybe okay - I'll try with the engine off. The old valve radio doesn't work. Gear linkage feels more vague than I expect and perhaps has bushes that need some love. Anyway here are a few photos of it now cluttering my driveway. Quick startup video and walk around. I've done a longer one but I need to do some more work work right now. More later!

Decided to stop being a lurker and start being a poster. So in 2020 I bought this, a Citroen AX GT. Why? Why not. I've wanted one forever. Unfortunately I'm terminally poor so I've had to buy a rusty project car. It used to be a Targa rally car. Mechanically it's spot on (except the hilariously unbalanced carb) - Sporting Bilstein B6's all round, polybushed... Bushes, group N gear linkages and engine mounts, and a high lift cam to top it off. With 13(!) previous owners and no service history I'm sure I'll find something scary mind. But that didn't interest me so I decided to do something insane and turn it back into a road car. I'm a bit limited with file sizes here so I'll upload a few from purchase and a few now. Currently it's awaiting welding which I'm trying to raise funds for as I can't weld or do much practical really... So far I've managed to source everything required to actually get it onto the road, sans front seats. As I mentioned though it is really, really in dire need of welding. It's rotten in places I've never seen these rot before. The easy solution would be a reshell but no, I'm a sadist and I hate myself so I'm going to see this through to the end. And then I'm going to enjoy it until it breaks.